{"id":4903,"date":"2023-07-22T09:54:03","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T08:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theprintspace.co.uk\/help\/?post_type=ht_kb&p=4903"},"modified":"2024-03-13T18:51:01","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T18:51:01","slug":"how-artists-can-grow-their-instagram-following","status":"publish","type":"ht_kb","link":"https:\/\/www.theprintspace.co.uk\/help\/knowledge-base\/how-artists-can-grow-their-instagram-following\/","title":{"rendered":"How artists can grow their Instagram following in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Have you ever heard anyone say Instagram is over for artists? That it isn’t possible to grow a following organically? I suspect you have, but when anyone says this it simply tells you one thing; that they have not moved with the times and understood how engagement and growth strategies on Instagram have changed. If you can learn this yourself then that\u2019s your opportunity to grow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is focussed on how artists and photographers can grow following. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why do you want to grow your following in the first place? Instagram is an essential tool for artists to sell art online. Together with Twitter, these are the two main platforms right now for driving revenue when doing print drops, which is the best method for an artist to sell art online. It is possible that Threads could become a third platform for artists to sell, but at the time of writing it is too early to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the reward for a good following? A good monetisation rate for your following is $1 of online art sales per follower per annum. A great monetisation rate is $3 per follower per annum. To go from good to great you will need to use paid social ads to grow a specific print buying following. However you can get to $1 by growing your following, ensuring they are engaged with your content and by running timed print drops. We have many articles on our help centre and many discussions in our Facebook group<\/a> about how to run timed print drops. This article is focussed on growing your following using Reels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Social Media has changed art buying<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Instagram has changed over the years, some say as a result of TikTok, but in fact both IG and TikTok have responded to improvements in tech which allows video to be recorded, edited with special effects, and posted all from smartphones using mobile data networks. Content consumers prefer video, or at least we can certainly say they spend longer watching it compared to looking at still images. We can speculate as to why, but surely one of the reasons is our propensity to want to consume information in a narrative format, which is a hard-wired human psychological trait. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last 12 months IG has also prioritised carousel posts as well, which are a series of images or short videos that can be shown in any order and re-shown to people who have seen them before, but with a different first frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both these formats enable you, the artist, to communicate a narrative to the consumer of your content. So, if you want people to remember some aspect of you or your art, you need to communicate via a narrative. The other skill you need is to be able to create hooks in your content, which is the thing that grabs the attention when you first see the post, the thing that stops people scrolling and gets them engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we go deeper into examples of hooks and narratives in Reels and Carousels, I think it\u2019s important to make a point as to the way social media has changed things. Social media is not just a type of communication, it\u2019s a format. In much the same way the modern pop song created a standard format through which musicians communicate, social media has created a visual format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The format does not just refer simply to the aspect ratio or the optimal length of narrative (i.e. 9:16 and between 10 and 45 seconds for Reels). It refers to the features and styles of the stories, editing, sentiments being expressed etc. Just like pop music, these things happen in trends with creators feeding off each other for inspiration and the consumers enjoying the familiarity of the \u2018current sound\u2019. Again just like pop music, there is room for people who go against the grain and do things entirely their own way, but the majority tend to learn the rules of the format before they break them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The ingredients of a Reel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s focus down on Reels for a bit. One really interesting thing about Reels is the way the algorithm decides to show them to other Instagram users; they are the post type that is most likely to be shown to people who are not your followers. A really good Reel will be shown to up to 5x your follower numbers, a great Reel to 10x or more than the number of followers you have. As a result, perfecting Reels leads to fast follower growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the secret? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly the Reel needs a hook. As we said earlier Reels, as with any posts, need a hook and a narrative. Because of the limitless content available on Instagram people tend to give only 3 seconds to a Reel to engage them before scrolling onwards. If people get beyond the 3 seconds then the algorithm takes this as a signal that people are likely to stop scrolling and start watching. A high ratio of people watching beyond 3 seconds means it has passed the first algorithmic test. It is said to have an effective hook. The second metric is regarding narrative, if the Reel has an effective narrative people will be more likely to watch until the end and  share it, comment and hit like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If both an effective hook and narrative are evident from the data of the first group of people the Reel is shown to, then Instagram will start to show it to expanding groups of people, based on having shared interests with the group who originally watched, liked, shared and commented on it in above average proportions. Instagram will keep expanding the groups the Reel is shown to until the responses from users return to at or below average levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To make the point, let’s return to the pop song format as an example. In the same way that the modern pop song needs to have a hook to capture people\u2019s attention, so these formats need mainly visual hooks to do the same (although using trending catchy music on Reels really helps too). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To use the musical analogy, let\u2019s take Smells Like Teen Spirit, ranked as one of the most successful tracks of all time and one that arguably helped to propel Nirvana to global stardom. It has great riffs that act as the hooks, and it has brilliant lyrics that set a tone of frustration, teenage angst, and a rejection of apathy, and of course it was sung by a charismatic angst-ridden lead singer Kurt Cobain. So it has a strong narrative\/ message plus hooks and it wouldn\u2019t have been as successful as it was if it was missing either. For anything you want to say to be listened to, you need both of these things too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most common mistake that I see when people are making reels is that they don\u2019t think they need to put a hook into them. They think that their narrative is enough, and that should interest people. As humans we have a familiarity problem. No one is closer or more caught up in our own narrative than we are, and so we have a tendency to see the world a bit as centred around us. The trick is to consciously remove yourself from that way of thinking and to realise that no one else cares as much about what you want to say as you do, so you need to grab their attention. You do this with hooks. A brilliant narrative without a hook will get barely any views, a hook without a narrative will get views, but it won\u2019t have the effect in building awareness of your art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The benefits of carousels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, let\u2019s look at a quantitative study that compares Reels with carousels. Here are the findings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Instagram Reels have had a 57.4% YoY growth in usage<\/li>
  2. Reels generate the highest amount of saves for the smallest profiles<\/li>
  3. Carousels spark the highest number of comments across all profile size<\/li>
  4. With a double reach rate than the other post types, virality is more likely to be achieved through Reels<\/li>
  5. Reels have a 2x higher average impression rate compared to the other Instagram content types<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Source: Social Insider, June 27th 2023<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In terms of growing your user numbers Reels are therefore better, as summarised by this graph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Source: Social Insider, June 27th 2023 <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    So carousels have good reach, but now it looks like they are not that much different to single images. However before we start to think that we may as well post single images, let\u2019s think back to the concept of formats. Whereas Reels are the best format for growing followers, Carousel posts lend themselves to telling a narrative and so I think they are great posts for launching a print drop. You can show some of the work in progress, or if your print drop is more than one work you can show them both (we don\u2019t recommend dropping more than 2 works at a time). You could include a very short video of an unboxing or you putting the print on the wall in your Carousel as it is a mixed stills & video format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I am going to stray a little off from purely data-driven conclusions here and say that anecdotally I notice that the accounts I really engage with more deeply, carousels get shown to me numerous times to ensure that I have seen all of the slides (Instagram mixes up the order to show me the slides I haven\u2019t viewed first). So it seems that this could be a good way to ensure your followers don\u2019t miss your print drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    How do you measure Reel or Carousel success?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Making great content for artists requires experimentation and iteration, plus imitating other people\u2019s ideas that you see being successful. To make improvements and to judge success you need to know the key metrics. Here they are the main ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n